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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22806457">You Made No Impression</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisbluespirit/pseuds/thisbluespirit'>thisbluespirit</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Spooks | MI-5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Character Study, Community: 100_women, Community: 100fandoms, Community: allbingo, Community: halfamoon, Ficlet, Gen, References to Canonical Character Death, Spies &amp; Secret Agents</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 09:15:44</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>458</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22806457</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisbluespirit/pseuds/thisbluespirit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Ruth stays in the shadows.  She likes it that way.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Allbingo, Focus on Female Characters, Half a Moon: 14 Days of Celebrating Women, The 100 Multifandom Challenge</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>You Made No Impression</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written (belatedly) for Halfamoon Day 7 (Making enemies), Allbingo February Flowers square "Rose (white-withered) - You Made No Impression," 100fandoms prompt #62 "brilliant" and 100_women prompt #39 #conceal.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Day in, day out, it’s mostly the same at GCHQ.  Ruth sits and listens to traffic.  She’s an ever present, unseen observer of other people’s lives.  She records their indiscretions and secret, small crimes and notes discrepancies like an invisible angel of judgement.  Some of it may even turn out to be useful one day.  It’s all good practice to get her to where she wants to be.</p><p>While she waits, amid overheard conversations and extracted information, she collates data on individuals she will never meet.  She’s their silent nemesis.  If she wanted, she could destroy them.  All she has to do is frame her reports in the right (wrong) way, all the snippets of transcripts and stolen figures added up to the worst possible conclusions.</p><p>She doesn’t, though.  That would be wrong.  Unless they really deserved it, of course.  She thinks, sometimes, that if they don’t let her out of this place, she might.  Make up an enemy and bring them down, just to see if she could.</p><p>She bets she could.</p><p> </p><p>What takes her from there to here is something else again: she betrays her new team just to join them, a double agent for two divided parts of her own side.  Somehow, it works.</p>
<hr/><p>“Ruth,” says Harry, as she walks into his office.  “John Corbett.  Head of Temix International.  Currently linked to worrying leaks of military prototypes and untouchable – until now.  Give me some good news.”</p><p>It’s hard to decide how to bring a man down, isn’t it?  She has so many available options.  Leak his gambling habit to the press, or maybe the existence of a mistress and an undeclared flat in Mayfair, or just transfer the contents of his secret offshore account to a charity of her choice.  Perhaps it’d be more poetic just to let loose his incriminating emails onto the worldwide web and watch him be devoured by social media.  Clearly Corbett really does believe he’s untouchable or he’d have been more careful than this.</p><p>“There <i>is</i> good news, isn’t there?” Harry says.  “Ruth, don’t let me down.”</p><p>Ruth grins.  “Oh, we’re spoilt for choice, don’t worry.”</p><p>Her enemies never know what hits them.  She’s invisible to everyone outside of Section D, but utterly lethal if she chooses to be.  Sometimes at night, she works out how to take over the country – hypothetically.  She is, after all, on the side of the angels and justice and Harry Pearce.</p><p>But she bets she could, if she tried.  Nowhere is safe from her.</p><p> </p><p>She’s forever unseen by the world, and she likes it that way.  Those who do meet her rarely understand what she is; underestimation is her ally.</p><p>In the end, she can even die twice and never cause the faintest stir.</p>
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